Berlin, Germany. In recently reported information, Germany’s BND intelligence agency has been caught spying on Interpol as part of its regular operations, causing shock and consternation within other EU nations, as to just how far German spying goes within their shaky union.
The German Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND, foreign intelligence agency spied on the Interpol international police agency for years and on the group’s country liaison offices in dozens of countries such as Austria, Greece and the United States, a German magazine said.
No comment was immediately available from the BND, Interpol or Europol. German media sources, citing documents seen, said the BND had added the email addresses, phone numbers and fax numbers of the police investigators to its sector surveillance list.The German spy agency also monitored the Europol police agency which is based in The Hague, Netherlands.
News Front reported in February that the BND also spied on the phones, faxes and emails of several news organisations, including the New York Times and Reuters.
Espionage activities have come under intense scrutiny during a German parliamentary investigation into allegations that the US National Security Agency conducted mass surveillance outside of the United States, including a cellphone used by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
German political leaders were upset, Konstantin von Notz, a Greens party member who serves on the investigative committee, described the latest report about the BND’s spying activities as “scandalous and unfathomable, we now know that parliaments, various companies and even journalists and publishers have been targeted, as well as allied countries.”